Intel Confirms Data Corruption Bug, Halts New SSDs

CWmike writes "Intel has confirmed that its new consumer-class X25-M and X18-M solid state-disk drives (SSDs) suffer from data corruption issues and said it has pulled back shipments to resellers. The X25-M (2.5-inch) and X18-M (1.8-inch) SSDs are based on a joint venture with Micron and used that company's 34-nanometer lithography technology. That process allows for a denser, higher capacity product that brings with it a lower price tag than Intel's previous offerings, which were based on 50-nanometer lithography technology. Intel says the data corruption problem occurs only if a user sets up a BIOS password on the 34-nanometer SSD, then disables or changes the password and reboots the computer. When that happens, the SSD becomes inoperable and the data on it is irretrievable. This is not the first time Intel's X25-M and X18-M SSDs have suffered from firmware bugs. The company's first generation of drives suffered from fragmentation issues resulting in performance degradation over time. Intel issued a firmware upgrade as a fix."

Comments

Test before you ship

[alain94040]

Maybe they should have used HW/SW co-verification (like Seagate in that study - an example of how a storage company tests their firmware).

For you software developers out there who enjoy free debuggers, you should know that we, hardware designers, also have our own debuggers. Except they are a little bit more expensive (think $500,000+) and can be quite bulky. But they are the only way to really test firmware before taping-out a chip.

Re:Well..

[rickb928]

Is this a cost issue, or a thoroughness issue?

No, we dont catch every possible scenerio here, either, but we do try very, very hard. Knowing one of the coders in Intel's RAID drivers groups, he goes crazy with stuff. And he just writes Linux drivers. I do not envy him - this past year, every bug he's had to fix has been caused by someone else's code. Someone not writing Intel drivers. And he gets slammed every time for bad testing, as if he can test all the rest of the kernel team's stiff, NTM every fly-by-night Chinese hardware outfit. They're killing him.

I can't even say 'ext4', he just goes insane. Though he chuckles when I whisper 'ReiserFS', and opens another beer.

I'm glad I'm not in that line of work.

Re:I find this disturbing

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I remember updating the HARDWARE of my modem: Changing the swamping resistors to reduce the Q of the filters and broaden the passbands so the Rx side would work at 300 as well as the original 110 baud. B-)